Hi all,
I've been lurking on the AZB's forums for the longest time, so I decided to go ahead and post for the first time.
I haven't seen much info on the Hybrid Pro II shaft, so I'll share my experience with it for others who are curious about the shaft.
A while back (about 6 months ago), I was looking for information on the Hybrid Pro II shaft by Mezz Cues. I checked various pool-forums, but couldn't find much.
I wanted to buy the shaft, but didn't have any information to go by. I did shoot a few balls with the Hybrid Pro I shaft, which I really liked. But I never practiced or play with one. I was playing with a Predator 314 shaft at the time.
But the feel of the Hybrid Pro I shaft was really really nice and that is what made me decide to buy the Hybrid Pro II shaft.
I was told by a Mezz representative that a carbonfibre rod is installed in the shaft. That makes the shaft so stiff. See: http://www.miki-mezz.com/english/about_Mezz/hybridpro/main.html
Once I got it really liked the stiffness of the shaft. But it did take some getting used to, I had been playing with a 314 up till then. The 314 seemed very flexible compared to the Hybrid.
The Hybrid's ferrule is hollow, according to a friend of mine. Note that I didn't hear this from the Mezz representative. So, I'm not a 100% sure on this.
What I did hear, is that top of the shaft is filled with styrofoam or another similar material. There's about 5 inches of foam inserted in the shaft: from the bottom of the ferrule downwards. This makes the shaft lighter in the top end and reduces squirt/deflection.
As far as I can tell: deflection- or squirtwise there isn't much difference between a Predator Z-shaft and Hybrid Pro II.
Cuepower: at first I couldn't get cue to follow or to draw as much as with the Predator 314. Now I can draw it nicely, but it requires a better stroke than with a Predator, imho.
Maybe it's my stroke -I have pretty short arms and don't play powershots very well- but I can't develop as much cuepower with the Hybrid Pro II. However, a friend of mine jacked up and shot a straight-in shot, with the cueball on the rail and got it to draw back full length of the table.
The biggest difference to me is that the Hybrid Pro II develops a lot of spin on the cueball right after contact with an objectball. For me it doesn't translate into long draw- or follow shots, but instead I get a very 'grippy' cueball.
I suppose if you have a big and powerful stroke you can get a lot of action on the cueball using the Hybrid.
I call it the 'grippy' cueball and this is what happens: when I draw a shot with a shallow angle, the cueball comes back a lot straighter than the initial angle would indicate. With a regular cue you can do this, by drawing very softly, with a lot of bottom English. There's a term for this, but I can't recall. Somehow, the Hybrid already does this for you.
There's a lot of advantages to this 'grippy cueball', though. You can create angles you normally can't get to or need a very good stroke for. That's great for players that aren't familiar with that type of stroke.
On the otherside, it's harder to snapdraw shots. The cueball really wants to come back fast after hitting with low English, so it doesn't stay on the tangentline very long.
When I need to snapdraw, I really have to hit the cueball hard, to make sure it follows the tangentline for a few inches. Sometimes I take short stab at it to snapdraw, but I'm not really comfortable with that.
Also, when you use left or right English on the cueball and you get to a rail the cueball can speed up immensely. I misjudge the pace sometimes when I spin the cueball two (or more) rails out. I compensate for it by not hitting the cue off center as much.
For example, I used to spin with 2 cuetips of English to get shape, now I only need with 1 cuetip. A nice byproduct of that is that you can aim a bit easier, since you don't need to go the outer edge of the cueball to get a lot of spin.
I hope this helps fellow AZB'ers to decide whether the Hybrid Pro II is for them or not. I heard Mezz is developing a new type of shaft. It was tentatively called Hybrid Pro III, but it's a complete new design and it won't carry the Hybrid name.
Bye!
I've been lurking on the AZB's forums for the longest time, so I decided to go ahead and post for the first time.
I haven't seen much info on the Hybrid Pro II shaft, so I'll share my experience with it for others who are curious about the shaft.
A while back (about 6 months ago), I was looking for information on the Hybrid Pro II shaft by Mezz Cues. I checked various pool-forums, but couldn't find much.
I wanted to buy the shaft, but didn't have any information to go by. I did shoot a few balls with the Hybrid Pro I shaft, which I really liked. But I never practiced or play with one. I was playing with a Predator 314 shaft at the time.
But the feel of the Hybrid Pro I shaft was really really nice and that is what made me decide to buy the Hybrid Pro II shaft.
I was told by a Mezz representative that a carbonfibre rod is installed in the shaft. That makes the shaft so stiff. See: http://www.miki-mezz.com/english/about_Mezz/hybridpro/main.html
Once I got it really liked the stiffness of the shaft. But it did take some getting used to, I had been playing with a 314 up till then. The 314 seemed very flexible compared to the Hybrid.
The Hybrid's ferrule is hollow, according to a friend of mine. Note that I didn't hear this from the Mezz representative. So, I'm not a 100% sure on this.
What I did hear, is that top of the shaft is filled with styrofoam or another similar material. There's about 5 inches of foam inserted in the shaft: from the bottom of the ferrule downwards. This makes the shaft lighter in the top end and reduces squirt/deflection.
As far as I can tell: deflection- or squirtwise there isn't much difference between a Predator Z-shaft and Hybrid Pro II.
Cuepower: at first I couldn't get cue to follow or to draw as much as with the Predator 314. Now I can draw it nicely, but it requires a better stroke than with a Predator, imho.
Maybe it's my stroke -I have pretty short arms and don't play powershots very well- but I can't develop as much cuepower with the Hybrid Pro II. However, a friend of mine jacked up and shot a straight-in shot, with the cueball on the rail and got it to draw back full length of the table.
The biggest difference to me is that the Hybrid Pro II develops a lot of spin on the cueball right after contact with an objectball. For me it doesn't translate into long draw- or follow shots, but instead I get a very 'grippy' cueball.
I suppose if you have a big and powerful stroke you can get a lot of action on the cueball using the Hybrid.
I call it the 'grippy' cueball and this is what happens: when I draw a shot with a shallow angle, the cueball comes back a lot straighter than the initial angle would indicate. With a regular cue you can do this, by drawing very softly, with a lot of bottom English. There's a term for this, but I can't recall. Somehow, the Hybrid already does this for you.
There's a lot of advantages to this 'grippy cueball', though. You can create angles you normally can't get to or need a very good stroke for. That's great for players that aren't familiar with that type of stroke.
On the otherside, it's harder to snapdraw shots. The cueball really wants to come back fast after hitting with low English, so it doesn't stay on the tangentline very long.
When I need to snapdraw, I really have to hit the cueball hard, to make sure it follows the tangentline for a few inches. Sometimes I take short stab at it to snapdraw, but I'm not really comfortable with that.
Also, when you use left or right English on the cueball and you get to a rail the cueball can speed up immensely. I misjudge the pace sometimes when I spin the cueball two (or more) rails out. I compensate for it by not hitting the cue off center as much.
For example, I used to spin with 2 cuetips of English to get shape, now I only need with 1 cuetip. A nice byproduct of that is that you can aim a bit easier, since you don't need to go the outer edge of the cueball to get a lot of spin.
I hope this helps fellow AZB'ers to decide whether the Hybrid Pro II is for them or not. I heard Mezz is developing a new type of shaft. It was tentatively called Hybrid Pro III, but it's a complete new design and it won't carry the Hybrid name.
Bye!
